For much of my life, I raged internally against my father who died without telling me his stories about his life and adventures. Unlike him, I want to share my favorite experiences and stories exploring the world.
Which is why I signed up for my first writing class.
To my surprise, from the first exercise — listing 15 turning points in my life — the one that begged to be written was the night my father died suddenly from a heart attack.
It was the middle of the night. I woke to the sound of my mother running through the dark house.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“Your dad is very ill.”
There was a phone next to their bed, yet she ran through the house to the phone in the kitchen to call our doctor.
I got out of bed and tiptoed across the hall to their bedroom. From the foot of the bed, I looked at the still figure, and said to myself — he’s not ill. He’s dead.
As if in a trance, I walked into the bathroom and said out loud to the face in the mirror “Your life is not going to change.” It felt like a portcullis clanging down, turning off all emotion. I returned to my bedroom and got back into bed.
I don’t remember crying. I do remember thinking as I lay alone in bed waiting for the doctor, It’s the wrong parent, why couldn’t it have been my mother?
It was 2 in the morning. Ossining was in a State of Emergency with deep snow from the blizzard. We lived on a steep hill with a view of the Hudson River, but somehow Dr. Reilly made it up to our house and walked down the long path that my father had shoveled that afternoon to go to dinner at our neighbor’s across the street.
The house was cold and quiet, except for the banjo clock ticking relentlessly in the hall. My mother and I waited in my bedroom, each lost in our own thoughts, while Dr. Reilly examined my father. He came back into the hall, all he said was, “I’m very sorry” and we knew. Before he left, he quietly called the funeral home. My mother slipped into bed with me as we waited in shock for the funeral home to come pick up the body.
When the day dawned, my mother called her cousin, Dorothy, who drove over from Connecticut. I was sent up the hill to neighbors to play in the snow with their children. It was a week before my 12th birthday. I was miserable. I had just lost my father. I was cold and bewildered. I didn’t even like these neighbors very much or their kids. I wanted to be home, in my warm bed, reading, escaping to a world other than the one in which I suddenly found myself.
I don’t remember crying but I may have at some point during the week.